This may sound strange to you, but I have to admit that one quite horrible story has been carved in my memory in a very positive way. I found this story more than a decade ago in a Spencer A. Rathus's Psychology, while I was preparing myself for studying psychology. The book won me with all of its 700 pages, full of interesting examples from scientific practice.
At that time, I was very interested in all kinds of psychological disorders, and this story I mentioned is actually a real example from scientific practice related to a dissociative disorder of identity. So, let me describe you what happened in that case.
Ohio, fall. Someone kidnapped, robbed and raped four female students. Thanks to a phone call, a perpetrator was found - a 23-year-old William, who was released from the navy and was actually very severely ill. Psychologists and psychiatrists who observed him discovered that there was 10 different personalities trapped inside him - eight men and two women. His personality was 'broken' by heavy abuse in childhood. Because of his inexplicability he was not found guilty but was placed in one psychiatric institution for six years (!!!). His personalities had different facial expressions and ways of talking, as well as different memories, different results on intelligence tests. Some of the personalities knew about the existence of others, while some believed they were alone. Arthur was the most rational of all personalities and spoke British accent, Danny and Christopher were silent teenagers, Christina was a three-year-old girl, Tommy was 16-year-old who voluntarily joined the navy, Alan was an 18-year-old smoker, and Adele was a 19-year-old lesbian who rapped kidnapped students. David, an anxious nine-year-old child personality, probably called the police after that.
Apart from this example, Rathus also mentions another scientist who, by studying this kind of personality disorder, has come to really fascinating results. Some of his patients had several personalities with different reactions to the same drug, they needed spectacles of different diopters, some personalities were colorblind, etc. On one of his patients, he proved that only one of the personalities, Timmy, is not allergic to orange juice, while all the other personalities were getting rash after consuming it. If Timmy appeared during the allergic reaction, the rash would disappear. But the rash could appear even if Timmy drank orange juice if another person appeared immediately afterward, and the juice was still undigested in the stomach.
I don’t know what’s your reaction to this story. For me, the first reaction was shock, but soon after that I become fascinated.
For the first time that I have really realized how powerful human mind can be. Our health and our entire world depend on our mind.
Maybe you see this example as not attractive or even stupid, but what if I told you the story of a girl who has changed her life by changing her attitude towards life, a story about a man who has cured his body by his thoughts? You would probably say - oh, here’s another new age shit. And yes, I have chosen this example because it is based on scientific evidence, for all those who have a lust for scientific evidences. :)
Basically, this thing that I am talking about is nothing new. A lot of books and scientific papers were written, a lot of movies and documentaries were filmed on this subject. People from different cultures are talking about this for centuries. But still, we are suspicious. We are still keeping some real facts in the drawer of science fiction.
But, a lot of science fiction can become really real - if only we could stop limiting ourselves with fear and laziness.
We will understand once that it can be much better than this, and then - when we stop being hostages of ourselves, when we really start working on ourselves and when we stop giving up easily, miracles will start happening.
So, take care and love your mind, spirit, and body.